Prague - "A celebration of the freedom of movement in the city" and "an opportunity to experience the streets of Prague somewhat differently for a while" were some of the slogans used by organizers of the Critical Mass Ride through the streets of Prague on Saturday September 22nd, the International Car Free Day.
With the beautiful weather, the event was well attended and passed without a glitch. Thousands of people came out for a ride which covered some 12 kilometers and offered the participants a unique chance to pedal along some of the main traffic arteries in the Czech capital which are all but impossible to navigate on bikes on a regular day.
It remains to be seen whether the city officials heed calls to make Prague more bicycle-friendly during the rest of the year too.
To that end, organizers of the ride from the Auto*Mat activist group are currently collecting signatures under their petition which calls on Prague´s political representation to start implementing pedestrian- and cyclist-friendly policies after years of merely paying lip service to them.
"We have been organizing these bike rides for five years now. By the year 2000 the Prague city centre reached the point of saturation with the volume of car traffic it gets, and it is still growing," complains one of the spokesmen of Auto*Mat Michal Křivohlávek.
"The city hall supports this trend with billions of Crowns worth of investment into tunnel- and motorway-construction, while building of the infrastructure for the bicycle traffic nearly stopped. Many streets in Prague thus remain dangerous and unfriendly."
"We do have a feeling that the issue of cycling has been abused and exploited in the election campaigns without making real changes," adds Křivohlávek.
Mayor Pavel Bém promised to build 260 kilometers of new bicycle routes before the year 2010. With statistics showing only 21 kilometers of these built during the last five years the task seems rather daunting.
